I have a few CD's loaded with a variety of music and am thinking of transfering them to a single 16gb thumb drive. All the titles end with ".WMA" Will this work with the CUE system?

CDN XTS

01-13-13, 02:59 PM

According to the Manual the answer is YES.

Playing from a USB
A USB mass storage device can be connected to the USB port.
Audio extensions supported by the USB are:
MP3
WMA
AAC
OGG
AIFF
3GPP

flying fossil

01-13-13, 06:26 PM

Do those same file types work with the SanDisc class 10 media?

brock123

01-14-13, 01:16 AM

Not sure i only have mp3's and wav's on mine. If you're using 16 gigs of music be prepared for your cue to take a long time to load everything the first time you put it in. My system took a good 30 minutes to read 1 gig of music before cue was usable again the first time i put the usb in. Also i'm not sure how to make playlists for cue but i made the mistake of using my itunes folder on the usb stick. Itunes automatically makes mini folders for each artist so i can't just press seek forward to go to next track, i have to browse through the usb stick root folder every time i want to listen to a new song. Need to take a day to figure all that out.

CDN XTS

01-14-13, 01:55 AM

As to formats the Manual states:

SD Card Reader
This vehicle may have two SD
ports, one in the center console and
one in the center console storage
area, if equipped with Rear Seat
Entertainment (RSE).
The SD port is for audio and video
playback. Photos are not supported.
Playback from an SD card follows
the same file formats and
restrictions defined under the USB
section.

I assume the video playback works only for the RSE unit. You do not wish watching a video while driving LOL. But as to audio formats based on the manual is it the same as for the USB port. As to class 10 speed and also the SD type, both physical size and capacity,.the manual is deficient and I have suggested elsewhere that GM does list such technical data, the reason I haven't yet purchased and transfered my songs to an SD card (*). The same goes for the USB "PORT" speed. Having said that, I have not heard of any SD port having a speed restriction, but don't know for sure.

(*) My XTS has yet to be delivered to me, (- GM Canada builts the cars but seems to be in no hurry to take money from it's Canadian customers. LOL-) so I cannot actually test whether or not the actual operation concurs with the manual. I understand the manual has certain functions listed which may not be on the actual car.

I suggest you do read the manual as to other audio related requirements, USB formatting rules, etc.

----------

Not sure i only have mp3's and wav's on mine. <rest snipped>

Does it actually play back WAV files from the USB and CD ports, given that extension is not listed?

jeffpaletz

02-03-13, 05:23 PM

I use both MP3 files and M4a files and it works well. I have about 1300 songs on a 16 gig USB memory stick but only 9 gigs are used. I also have the same set of songs on a 16 gig SD memory card. Both work the same. It takes about 55-60 seconds to index each time I start the car. The nice part about the MP3 files is that the album artwork shows up on the CUE system and on the DIC. I have two playlists on the SD Card as well and a number of saved artists on the favorite buttons. I wish the system didn't index each time the car was started but I understand they are working on an alternative to that problem. I am using a class 10 Sandisk SD card and it does work faster than the class 6 one I was using. It finishes indexing much sooner with the class 10 SD card.

CDN XTS

02-03-13, 11:05 PM

55-60 seconds to index. Are you sure or are you counting the time it takes to play a song from the SD card. I wish the timing you are mentined was true for me with a class 10 SD card. Took around 40 minutes. Yes I can play a song within a few seconds after starting the car, but when trying to put an album or artist on a favorite button, it tells me indexing is not finished and only after about 40 min. can I do that.

Runch Machine

02-03-13, 11:44 PM

I have 10 buttons reserved for artists and one for a favorites list. It normally takes 55-60 seconds before those buttons light up and are able to be used. It takes about 5 seconds for the system to start playing from the SD card or USB stick. The buttons are not lit at that time. I have 2 play lists with about 200 songs on them and about 1300 songs total on the media. I also have 4 short video, each about 2 minutes long. I used to have a play list for all 1300 songs and the system would take 30+ minutes until the favorite buttons would light. I found that by deleting the large play list it solved the problem of the system taking a long time to index. I do not keep my ipod plugged in, which also takes a long time to index.

Sometimes I have a problem where the system does not seem to recognize the SD card or USB stick. Usually if I cycle through the sources then the system will see the SD card or USB stick. I don't know why this happens. I have the same data on both the USB stick and SD card and I just wanted to see if either is faster. I did find that the SD card is a few seconds faster. I also tried formatting with FAT32 verses NTFS but did not see a difference in the time it takes to index.

By the way, I was curious about the question of the system being able to play WAV files so I loaded a number of WAV files on a USB memory stick and the system played them with no problems. One of the wave files had album artwork on it and it showed up on the display and on the DIC. I wish M4a files that have album art would also have it show up on the displays.

Can you describe what media you are using and what's on the media that takes so long to index? Are there just music files, play lists, videos or??

CDN XTS

02-04-13, 01:59 PM

@Runch Machine
I am using a 32 GB GB Class 10 SDHC card formatted NTFS and have, I believe, around 3000 songs on it. Noted latest iTunes version no longer shows # of songs. (may have to change some settings). Unfortunately, there is no information in the XTS manual as to what SD host device is in CUE, e.g. what media is supported and as some reported a problem with SDXC cards, I didn’t buy one of those. I understand though that certain SDHC host devises can read SDXC cards if the standard proprietary exFat format is changed. In any event for the car I don’t think a 2 TB SD card is needed, although I believe at present the largest SDXC card available is 256 GB.

I simply copied my “Music” folder to the SDHC card with also includes the iTunes folder. I am presently investigating whether that folder or at least some of it of it is not needed to be on the SD card in the car. See my post
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums/cadillac-user-experience-cue/274757-cue-wishlist-fix-refinement-thread-8.html
I believe that folder does hold the playlists info and even video info. Having just received my car, I have not checked into playlists etc. At least when I on my PC temporarily deleted a by iTunes generated playlist the file sizes for iTunes Music Library.xml, iTunes Library Extras.itdb and iTunes Library.itl changed.

In the car I could right away search the SD card and starting the car, it would carry on playing the song from the SD card it played when exiting the car. I have presently nothing else connected to the CUE – have yet to purchase an iPhone – and while I had connected my own iPad once via BT and it worked, I don’t carry the iPad in the car as no real place to put and hide it when parking the car. But when I tried to place an artist (two albums with 26 songs) on a favorite button, it then came up with the indexing issue which after taking my first longer trip then worked after some 40 or so minutes. Trying that again on the next trip, I again run into the indexing issue. I assume your 55-60 seconds relate to being able to play those artists with CUE probably “indexing” those first, but believe if you try to place another artist or whatever on your favorite button it will only work after CUE again completed a full indexing job.

Interesting as to playing a WAV file, another info missing from the manual, just like the info on the SD host device or type of USB stick support. Since a USB2 port should be able read my USB3 stick but at USB2 speeds (not tried yet) I would like to know whether CUE has an USB3 port supporting the vastly increased speed of a USB3 stick or not.

Does CUE actually support playing a video, given video is not supported by the C/D drive (the one in the glove box)? Does it play while parked or while driving – shouldn’t for the latter? Although the iTunes folder has video info on it, my actual videos (lots and long ones) are in my Video Folder on my PC and I did not transfer that folder to the SDHC card. That Video folder does NOT have any iTunes folder. So there is certainly a reason to delete whatever possible from the iTunes folder in the car, which may or may not speed up indexing. Perhaps Cody can provide some inside into this.

Addendum - verified iTunes actually put all my many movies from my Video Folder into the iTunes folder under my Music folder but transfered them to a different format. So some gidelines are needed as to what can and cannot be deleted from the iTunes folder on the SD card in the car, assuming such may be a stop-gap messure to reduce indexing time pending a final solution.

jeffpaletz

02-04-13, 07:59 PM

I called the CUE helpline about a month ago and they told me that having songs in sub directories will slow down the indexing. My SD card has my songs one directory down from the root directory. If you copied your music directory than you likely have files stored several levels down. You have your music directory, then your Itunes directory, then the artist, then the album and finally the actual file with the song. That's probably 5 levels down. I copied songs from Itunes by bringing up a list, either all music or clicking on a play list, which then put is list of songs on the screen. I clicked the first song, then scrolled down to the last song and clicked on it while holding the shift key. This highlighed all the songs. Then I right clicked and selected copy. Then I right clicked on the SD card and right clicked and selected paste. This copied all the songs into the root directory. Alternately you can create a directory and paste into it.

According to the CUE help line this should speed up the indexing. Try this and let us know what happens.

As far as videos, I loaded some podcast videos and they did play with a picture as long as the car was in Park. The screen does not show the video image when you put it in drive. Note that some video files played and some did not even though they appeared to be the same format. I haven't done much with this since its not that useful to me.

CDN XTS

02-06-13, 03:05 AM

Thanks Jeff for your input.

I tried that, a lot less space since the 2.2GB iTunes folder is not copied, most of that in my case are the copies of videos in a different format than those in my "Video" folder, nor the many art JPG files I, for one donít need videos in the car. Indexing was reduced from over 40 minutes to just over 30 minutes for my 2,905 songs. My previously placed artist with songs from two albums of course did no longer work. I could only re-create it after indexing was finished. But just like before, CUE seems to be able to basically immediately read all the ID3 tags in all songs and one can select a song, artist, album, etc. Not sure about playlists or the like as they are not in the ID3 tags.

Artwork was not available, even though I copied all the art files from just one album to my SD card and selected that album. Nor where there any playlists. Since I believe playlists can not be generated directly in CUE, unless I missed some instructions, I assume some files from the iTunes folders are required. I did some investigation as to files probably needed, being:

the iTunes Library.itl file which contains information about all songs, videos, and audiobooks, as well as playlists, comments, ratings.
the iTunes Music Library.xml file which is just another version of the iTunes Library file, but in a format that is readable by other programs that may be able to access the iTunes content.
the iTunes Library Extras.itdb contains some Gracenote CDDB information.
the iTunes Library Genius.itdb contains information about the music library for iTunesí Genius feature.
And there is the Album Artwork folder, which contains both album art downloaded from the iTunes Store and a cache of album art that iTunes uses in its various displaysófor Cover Flow and regular album art displays in the iTunes library or playlists. That Artwork/Cache folder contains various numbered subfolders, which seems to be related to my present set-up of album folders.
Having perused the .xml file, which is readable, I note it contains location info, i.e. the subfolder, sooooooo, while the method you suggested and now used by me works for playing songs, artists, albums, etc. and reduces the indexing time somewhat, if one wishes to see the artwork, use playlists, etc. it may well be necessary to use subfolders. Of course it could be possible to re-arrange everything on the computer first which would change the iTunes Music Library files as well and then copy it to the media used for the car. Not sure if the various art files I presently have in the various album folders are a duplicate of what iTunes has in the Album Artwork folder and which one/or both are needed. But my test outlined above didnít work. I assume the ones with hex names are the ones used by iTunes. I also found in my album folders files with identical names called Album Art small.jpg and Folder.jpg but donít know what created them and if needed. If needed, given the idential names, subfolders would be required.

Now if only some expert of CUE can provide some information as to what info, other then the actual music file is being used/required by CUE, that would be nice.
As to video information, I for one are not interested in videos in my car, certainly not while driving and when parked, I can use my iPad. (Donítí have a smart phone yet).

Of course, there is still the important task for the CUE team find a better way. I.e. to reduce/eliminate the indexing aspect for every start of the car if there was no change to the media which carries the music. Given the many requests posted, Iím sure they are working at that.

N.B.
I removed the "Further Addendum" from my previous post as the problem of playing an incorrect artist in my selection was not CUEís fault. I should have gone back to the original C/Dís first, both of which I had received from a friend, as I just couldnít believe that CUE could even generate such an error. I checked now and found out that one C/D was correct, the other had (albeit a slightly smaller file) the same song with just a slight change in name but incorrect album/artist info in the ID3 tag. Sorry about that.

CDN XTS

02-11-13, 04:02 PM

I did a lot of tests but still have problems with showing up Playlists. Have again transferred my Music library which includes 2,905 MP3 files in various subfolders (including the iTunes folder) to an SD card. Since CUE doesn't used the iTunes info, I used iTunes to export Playlists to M3U playlist files and used Find & Replace to change the info in the M3U files from "D:\Music\"[rest of path] to "..\"[rest of path] and placed those M3U files into the root folder of the SD card. For testing purpose I also created via Windows Media Player a test playlist and placed the respective WPL file (which does shows the path as ..\[rest of path] also in the root folder of the SD card. Yet while I can browse everything on the SD card, nothing shows up when trying to select Playlists.

On the other hand when I connect my iPad (in sync with iTunes), via USB I can browse everything and can also view and select all playlists. All before indexing is completed.

What am I doing wrong with the SD card? Anyone has any suggestions?

CDN XTS

02-12-13, 05:22 PM

/Update after further testing:

Did some driving (love the car how it handles) and after a full indexing which took over 1/2 hours for my 2,905 songs on my SD card. (iPad not connected)

Playlists still don't show up from my SD card Everything else works - no artwork - see below
connecting iPad via BT shows everything greyed out but previously selected music started playing after selecting the iPad - apparently browsing not supported that way (at least not prior to indexing).
connecting iPad via USB (not indexed) everything can be browsed and selected including playlists. Takes only a few seconds for CUE to collect relevant data from the ID3 tags in the MP3 files and get the playlists wherever iPad stores those.
So I need some help in getting the playlists issue working for my SD card - presently still on it the way I stated it in my previous post for both the M3U versions and the test WPL one as generated by Windows Media Player. I expected at least that one would work - actually all should. Anyone has any suggestions on that?

As to artwork I have only the jpg files iTunes placed in the album folders - works on the PC and iPad but not from CUE. Do not have presently any artwork imbedded in my MP3 files which may be what CUE needs for showing artwork. Not a priority for me - just nice to have.

CDN XTS

02-17-13, 02:49 PM

As this is really a CUE issue I posted today at 2:39pm my total expirence in finally getting playlists to work here:
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums/cadillac-user-experience-cue/282181-can-cue-play-itunes-music-files.html